Save time and simplify
your homeschooling life...
Learn from experienced
homeschoolers how to write your own curriculum.
It really is that easy!
Use this website with Beverley Paine's Getting Started with Home Schooling - Practical Considerations to help you develop your own educational curriculum to suit your family situation, beliefs and lifestyle. The checklists can help you identify your children's current educational skill level in each subject area, as well as find any 'gaps' in their learning, plan what they need to cover or keep track of what has been learned. As you can appreciate this website is continuously under development... It's our aim to add pages on a regular basis in all curriculum areas: check back frequently. Feedback and comments welcome. We hope you enjoy the articles and activities and find the links and recommended resources useful. Over the next year we will be working our way through each subject area and writing fresh, new content which will also be reproduced in a reasonably priced handy reference booklet from our Practical Homeschooling Series. |
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"Congratulations on a terrific website. It's a great resource." Steven "By sharing your experiences, we are into our third year of homeschooling and enjoying it thoroughly." Marina "Thank you so much for your wonderful website! I was getting quiet frustrated with finding appropriate information on homeschooling - thanks to your website we are now on the right track... Using your checklists for reassurance helped me to have the confidence to come up with my own programme that suits our needs." Rachael "I'm a frequent visitor to your website... I gain valuable knowledge from your website, luckily recommended in the very early stages of our homeschooling journey." Geradine "I checked out your website today and was incredibly impressed by it. I can tell it will be a great resource for our family for many years. THANKS for all the hard work that has gone into making homeschooling easier and much less isolating for families like us." Cynthia |
Words Across the World
© Beverley Paine, 2004
My mum encouraged me to write letters to our relatives in England, and then, as I grew older, she helped me find pen pals. It's easy to find a homeschooled pen pal for your child. Browse the Internet for homeschooling sites and email the website owner, telling them you are interested in finding pen pals for your children and would they be help to help. State or national organisations that publish on-line or printed newsletters or magazines are good to target.
A word of caution: do not share personal details about your child in a public forum, especially if you haven't asked her permission. Age and gender details should be sufficient to make the first connection.
Children often need help to get pen pal relationships established and to keep them alive. These are some of the things I've done with my children to help them:
• given them ideas of what to write about: what they have been doing recently; descriptions of their favourite toys, games and activities; talk about their hobbies or favourite books and movies; their dreams and goals; anything in their lives - adventures they've had, etc.
• shown them how to respond to things their pen pals says or asks;
• told them to write as if they were speaking;
• shown them how to use the spell and grammar checking function on the word processing program; or how to use the dictionary and thesaurus;
• bought aerograms or light-weight note paper and given notepaper and envelope sets as spontaneous gifts to encourage them to write to their pen pals;
• made and/or bought postcards. Some children find letter writing intimidating but are happy to jot a few sentences on the back of a postcard. There are several homeschool postcard projects on the go around the world at once you can join. We received over fifty cards when we participated and kept the cards in a photo album with a map of the world showing where each card came from;
• started a stamp collection!
• encourage your child to look for things they have in common with their pen pal that they can talk about;
• encourage them to talk about the things that are different too;
• share pictures and mementos with each other - this may be small tourist items, like badges, fridge magnets or pennants at first but can include calendars, small toys, swapping computer games or favourite books, whatever! Distance doesn't have to be a barrier;
And finally, I taught my children never to share their passwords or address with on-line pen pals and to tell me immediately if something doesn't sound or feel okay about the developing relationship.
on this website is of a general
nature only and is not intended as
personal or professional advice.
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Beverley and Robin Paine
PO Box 371 Yankalilla 5203
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Thank you for visiting!
Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia,
Beverley and Robin Paine
are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families.
They began homeschooling in 1986 and three years later started the
South Australian Home Based Learners
network. Beverley continues to write for homeschooling newsletters
and magazines as well as hosting several websites dedicated to promoting
and supporting home education in Australia. Her aim is to demystify the
education process and make it accessible to all parents. Enjoy Beverley's
wealth of practical knowledge, homeschooling and unschooling tips and
ideas through articles and books and online at
www.homeschoolaustralia.com.
Since the late 1990s Robin and Beverley have been building their home education
publishing business - Always Learning Books - from home with the help of their son Thomas.
"Education is not a preparation for life. Education is life itself." John Dewey
Please note that the opinions and articles included in the suite of Homeschool Australia websites are not necessarily those of Beverley and Robin Paine, nor do we endorse or necessarily recommend products (other than our own) listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements.
Please visit the following websites for information on homeschooling in Australia:
Homeschool Australia : SAHEN : Australian HS Curriculum : About the Paine Family
Text & Images on this site
Copyright © 1999-2008 Beverley Paine.
All rights reserved.
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